In this interview the Canadian author Farley Mowat talkes about the southwest coast of Newfoundland where he sailed in the early 1960s. He portrays this coast both in Bay of Spirits: A Love Story (2006) and in earlier books like This Rock Within the Sea: A Heritage Lost (1968), The Boat Who Wouldn't Float (1969), and A Whale for the Killing (1972).
The literary genre of small craft voyaging has its clichés, and after a while the reader might fall into boredom despite her or his passion for sailing. After enduring innumerable narratives of dreams made true, countless trough descriptions of buying the boat, the fitting out, the brewing of the first storm, riding it out – etc. etc, one has to stifle a yawn. Unfortunately, the author’s personal adventure isn’t always converted into a thrill of reading, and after a while, even the interest in sweet – belated – South Sea dreams, slowly fades out. This is when Farley Mowat’s The Boat who wouldn’t Float (1969) has something to offer. In this book the enticing Caribbean islands are never to be reached. Instead, the Canadian author and his friend – and later on his girlfriend – are being enslaved by their old, leaking schooner – the boat who wouldn’t float. Their original dream is turned into a never-ending struggle against stinking fish entrails, currents, fog and gales on the weather-beaten south coast of Newfoundland. What makes the book worth reading is first and foremost Mowat’s charming self-irony and sense of humour. The schooner – “Happy Adventure” – more and more acts like a stubborn human being – and she refuses to leave her native coast, rather she’ll sink. With both sympathy and hilarious comedy, Mowat portrays the peculiar out port inhabitants of this coast. Another aspect is Mowat’s mixed feelings for the boat that enslaved him. The book, after all, is written “For her friends who have loved her despite her faults.”
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